falloutfanonfandomcom-20200222-history
Alan Robinson
The former captain of the infamous Damsel's Fool, Alan Robinson, is a rough fellow with a bent for alcoholism and a tendency for the violent, who continues to portray himself as the smooth-talking ladies-man he used to be. Nowadays, he travels around the southern states, especially the Gulf and Texas Commonwealths, scouring ruins for tech and scrap. History Alan was born in Nevada, in the small town that would later become Dusthall, as the third child in a family of farmers. His father tended to their patch of crops at Summit Lake, his mother worked as a seamstress and shoemaker, and he and his brothers spent most of their childhood chasing radscorpions and giant ants. Around the campfire, their father, once an avid traveler himself, would occasionally tell them stories about places far away: a city drenched in neon light, a place full of technological marvels where he wasn't allowed in and a land occupied by a nation so massive and with so many people, that he was convinced he was about to go crazy. These tales sure piqued young Alan's interest and his desire to travel beyond his hometown, but his father assured him that the world out there was too dangerous to travel alone and he had be to smarter then his once foolish father. After the departures of his brothers, who had left their home to join the caravans travelling to the south, and the death of his mother somewhere in 2245, Alan and his father were all that remained of the Robinson family in Dusthall. Alan was forced to take on a job as a guard so that he and his father would have enough money for food and water, but the work was dangerous and the days were long. Alan, who switched between patrolling and helping his dad on the fields, remained a guard for almost a year until a near-fatal radscorpion sting rendered him bedridden for several weeks. This was a tough period for the Robinsons as Alan's father had to look after him, using up the little bit of money they had on medicine. When Alan had finally recovered, his father decided that, since there was nothing left to keep them in Dusthall, they would move somewhere else. One evening, he told his son to prepare for a long trip through the wasteland. Alan's father never said why he wanted to go away from his home; maybe because of the memories of his wife that saddened him or the nostalgic feeling to get on the road again and show his son all of the marvelous things he had seen in his own youth. The Robinsons simply packed their bags and took their most precious belongings before locking the door to their shack. At the gate, a small group of villagers had gathered to say farewell, and when Alan and his father were nothing more than dots on the horizon, the villagers went back to their homes. However, the two did not go west, to California. Instead, their journey took them to the east. They passed the border with Utah after a couple of weeks, in Wendover. Then they continued and, although his father tried to find a way around it, they were forced to pass through the ruins of New Jerusalem. Alan's father refused to stop in New Canaan because he didn't trust 'those Babel-builders'. Alan was disappointed when he saw the church tower pass by in the distance, but he simply kept following his father. They crossed into Colorado in the first days of 2246. When they arrived in a town called Red Sand, his father took a good look around and told his son that this was were they would start a new life for themselves. Little did he know, was that the tribes of the south, from Arizona and New Mexico, would soon become a horrible threat. Alan was able to get a job in one of the saloons, and his father, who was quick in befriending Red Sand's Sheriff Darrell Almay, got to join the Rangers on their patrols through the town. Their pays weren't great, but they got paid nonetheless; a nice change after several months of misery. The group of Rangers that Alan's dad was part of, was off scouting the southern regions most of the time. So it came that one day, they encountered the first groups of Caesar's Legion. The Rangers had never encountered these people before, and they though it best to eradicate this small group of slavers in their region. Unaware of the fact that there were much more hostiles only a few minutes away, they attacked the group of Legion scouts and razed their camp. The distress call send out by a surviving scout reached a larger force of the Legion, and reinforcements were dispatched to catch up with the Rangers, who were now heading home. Only a dozen or so miles away from Red Sand, the group decided to set up camp and hit the road again at the first light of dawn the next day. As they did so, a number of Legionairies were watching them from a distance, waiting for the right moment. When most of the Rangers were asleep and the darkness of the night was complete, the Legion striked. The few men on guard duty were quickly dispatched, and those who were awakened by the screams of the victims were overwhelmed before they could even grab their weapons. After the battle, only a few Rangers were left, including Alan's father. A Decanus showed up and started picking out several of them, seemingly at random. Alan's father was one of those men. Without any explanation, they were dragged to the remains of Route 285, where they were beaten and subsequently crucified. The Legion went back to their camps, leaving the Rangers to die a most painful dead. Alan's father, although in agony, did his best to keep talking to his friends next to him, trying to give them some courage, but when he saw they were already dead, life faded from him as well. Those who had been 'lucky' enough not to have been picked, got their eyes stabbed out. One man was left with one eye, so he could guide his blind fellows through the desert back to Red Sand. The train of crippled arrived in town several days later, with many of them left dead in the desert. When a companion told Alan about the death of his father, Alan simply collapsed. He remained uncounscious for several days, and Doc Morty, a good friend of his father, took care of him all this time. Alan eventually recovered, and the first thing he did was to go to where his father was executed. And so, along with an escort of Rangers, he went to Route 285 and looked at the rows of crosses. Many of the dead had post-mortem wounds, presumably from Legionairies taking potshots at them. Alan found the body of his father, got him down from his cross and transported him back to Red Sand, to give him a decent burial. After these tragic events, Alan wandered around Red Sand for some time, vaguely aware that he was being shadowed by a Ranger with the instructions to intervene if Alan tried to end his life. No such attempts were made though, and one day the Ranger stepped from the shadows and introduced himself to Alan as Doyle, the Sheriff's nephew. The two soon became friends and Doyle, a well-travelled scout, inspired him to leave Red Sand behind and hit the trail again. After all, there was nothing left for Alan to keep him there. Doyle proposed to come with him and they soon said farewell to their comrades to head east, towards the Great River. The journey took them over a year, and Alan and Doyle met quite some danger on their way, ranging from roving bandits and cannibalistic tribals to great storms that more than once wrecked their shelter. But when they finally arrived at the Old Blue, Alan found it beautiful and saw that it had all been worth it. When the obvious problem hit them, the fact that they had no boat to cross and no steady bridge in sight, horns sounded in the distance. A small fleet of boats approached from the east, and they had spotted the two men on the coast. Some of the vessels had white- and red-striped flags with the letters MTU painted on them. When these people introduced themselves to Alan and Doyle, they also offered the two a place on one of their ships: the Damsel's Fool, an old blue fishing boat that Alan found himselves pulled to for some reason. The fleet's captain, an old, jolly Frenchman called René Guillant, navigated them across the river 'till they they hit the old docks of New Memphis. There, Alan and Doyle found a small place for rent just outside the walls of bustling Tenner's stadion. Guillant's ship, which had sustained some minor damage during their crossing of the Mississippi, was being repaired and resupplied, giving the crew an excuse to take some well-deserved R&R. In the meantime, René teached an interested Alan the basics of navigating and ship-maintenance and saw in him a bright student and an able boatsman. A day before their departure, when only René and Alan were aboard the Fool, a friendly figure came to visit them; mayor Wintress. René had been his friend since he was just a youngster, and the two of them spent the evening drinking wine and telling eachother stories. Alan sat by them the whole time, and he came to like old Felix. The next morning, the Guillant Fleet departed with the mayor's blessing and set sail towards the south. And so, Alan's life in the MTU began. Both Alan and Doyle saw no good reason to abandon the relative comfort and safety of the fleet, and there was ample food and clean water for them to live good lives. The long stretches of ruins on the eastern side of the River, on the Mississippi state side, were quite dangerous; the lookouts more than once spotted shadows in the doorways and eyes watching them from behind broken windows. Occasionally, the boatsmen heard voices singing in the night; an unusual sound that carries far across the silent waters. When they heard this, the entire fleet had to close the shutters and shut off all lights; no one wanted to be spotted by the Corsair ships that sailed by. Over the years, Alan steadily worked his way up through the ranks of the boatsmen, until he had become the highest officer in the fleet, second only to Guillant himself. When the old Captain died after a long struggle against a disease, Alan was instantaneously promoted to the now vacant position and became the leader of the small fleet. Keeping the name Guillant had given to his fleet, Alan went on to become a famous adventurer in the southern Mississippi, as he showed to have a nack for discovering well-hidden cases of ancient weaponry and valuables. In his several years as captain, Alan frequently docked in New Memphis, where one day he met a young and bubbly Lily Steffenfield. Both of them were interested in eachother, and Lily served on the Damnsel's Fool for several weeks before she married Alan. Deciding it was time to take it slower and settle down somewhere on the land, Alan left his fleet in the hands of his old friend Doyle and moved in with his new wife in her small shack in Ponto. For some time, Alan and Lily lived a quaint and easy life in Memphis. Lily did what she had always been doing; working in a small shop of the Remoir & Doyles Company that selled pre-War clothing, and Alan worked with the caravans, traveling their routes and offering his skills as a mechanic to whoever needed it. Lily, who had read several things about an old town called Tupelo not so far to the south-east, shared her dreams and ideas with Alan, who was supportive of her cause. Lily wanted to go there to clean out some buildings and begin her own trading post that would help people on the difficult road southwards. But if they ever had any hope to begin this adventure, most of it was crushed in the attacks of 2259. Only a couple of days after the death of the beloved mayor, Felix Wintress, did a gang of raiders attack several locations in Memphis, including Ponto's south side. Although Alan and Lily escaped with their lives, their home was burned to the ground along with most of their money and possessions. This was when Alan started drinking. At first, it was just something that temporarily made him forget he was now a poor man living underneath the remains of the Hernando de Soto Bridge without a job. But his alcoholism soon got worse; a few weeks after the attacks, Alan drank several stolen bottles of liquor a day, rendering him wasted most of the time. Of course, this put a heavy strain on his relationship with Lily, until one of their raging arguments ended with Lily packing her stuff and leaving him behind. The last thing he heard about her, was that she went south to do what she had wanted to do for so long. Surrounded by a drunken haze, Alan did the same and tried to chase after his wife, but with no succes. He ended up going south, surviving the dangers of the wasteland until he found himself in the bayous of Louisiana. There, he sort of managed to get some grip back on his life and sobered up. He still does his best to be an intrepid adventurer, to stay golden, but sometimes, in the weakest moments of his grim existence, he finds his shaking hands returning to the bottles he so desperately tries to cast away. Equipment Alan never carries more than he can fit in the small backpack he always carries around: some bottles of water, a couple of food cans, a small box of matches, a blanket, his money and some small tools to help him set up camp. Alan, as an outdoors man, prefers to sleep under the sky and therefore never really has anything on him to use for bargaining to pay for a bed. Still, he makes sure to keep an eye out for valuables so he can buy some new things, like repair parts for his assault rifle. His armor is simple, but sturdy; a dark suit of leather armor with metal plating as reinforcements, with a tattered hood to protect him from the harsh weather near the Gulf and the scorching sun of the Texas plains. Alan also carries with him a small, black notebook that he once found in a RobCo office in Monroe, Louisiana. The notebook is full of numbers and technical sketches, and none of it makes any sense to Alan, but for some reason he has never thrown it away and always keeps it close with him. The notebook only has one name in it; on the cover, a faded writing says ' Noah Bollinger '. Quotes Category:Characters